Based on the highly controversial best-selling novel, Kim Ji-young, Born 1982, is a pensive illustration of the clash between family tradition, modern gender roles, and personal desire. Kim Ji-young has grown up taking care of everyone around her. After watching her mother forgo a career as a teacher to support her husband and children, she finds herself falling into the same expected pattern. She now has to navigate a conservative patriarchal society in search of identity and self-actualisation.